


Symphony 3 of Sorrowful Songs

by enpassant



Category: Cricket RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 06:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14826801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enpassant/pseuds/enpassant
Summary: Sean was absolutely punch drunk in love with the skyscraper in his bed.





	Symphony 3 of Sorrowful Songs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [allrounderinsane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allrounderinsane/gifts).



> For Abbey, the true MVP of this exchange. Here is your gift of long, ridiculous sentences, rushed scenes and muddled tense, of two dumb boys in love.

Sean wakes up the next morning with the fierce intrusion of the rising sun pressing on the backs of his eyelids, feeling the way one does when their brain has had a particularly good time of it in the nocturnal chemistry office, which was to say he was feeling specially serotonin-y for 8 a.m. on a winter Saturday. He rolled on his side and stretched, cracking an eyelid to take in the blue-washed figure snoring beside him ensconced in his pillows and the wretched Spiderman doona Sean has had since he was eight.

"Oh my god," Harry moans minutes later, long arm jerking out from under the blankets to shield his face from the rays that had crept up over the back of Sean’s head. "No turn it off I’m sleeping fuck please no." He turned away from Sean, yanking a pillow over his face and fell silent again.

"Good morning," he tries. Harry’s snores resume in response.

 

~

 

In retrospect, Sean should’ve seen this coming, which was exactly how he hadn’t. Hope and opportunity had kept him warm in the early spring chill as they’d flown coast to coast in America, but all the craft beer on New York rooftops with Harry’s arm around him dropping from shoulder to waist, and second-rate hotel rooms with too-close quarters they’d shared in Las Vegas and LA had amounted to absolutely nothing. He’d spent the long flight home at the end of April moping and angry at himself in equal measure, determined by touchdown in Sydney to just get the fuck on with it now because if Harry hadn’t wanted to jump his bones on the holiday Sean had coaxed him into in pursuit of such exact things, then it was time to call it the bloody pipe dream it was.

But then Harry had called him three days later as Sean had been attempting to give Bear a bath and re-acquaint himself with the concept of doing household chores, and _goddamn_ him because Sean had spent exactly 83 hours trying to get over the hang up his heart had over this dude and how dare he—.

"Hey. I miss you. My life is hollow without your filthy sock piles to gaze at when I’m taking a piss in the morning. And I’ve forgotten how to eat normal shit which is your fault, so anyway. I’m coming over soon."

Harry did not ever forewarn him when he was coming over, which should have set Sean’s spidey senses to at least the slightest of tingles that something was afoot, but it hadn’t because he’d been rather preoccupied with squashing down very hard on the excited exclamation mark unfurling in his chest.

"Bring pizza," he’d managed to say instead of things that he was Very Absolutely Not Allowed to say.

"Like, did you not hear what I just said. My organs are in distress. I need organic nourishment and I need it before I lose all dignity and start wearing jeggings because nothing in my wardrobe can accommodate my new American booty."

Harry never turned down pizza except for that one time he had announced he was going on a health kick after he’d met a young fan who had her black belt at training one day and Sean was not allowed to bring the ensuing failure up ever, so he’d only done so every few weeks since then.

When Harry’d arrived - on time, which he _never_ \- Sean was in a pre-arranged position on the couch holding onto Bear’s collar for dear life. In he had swanned, freshly shaven, drum rolling on the back of the lounge to the music Sean had indulgently pointedly chosen (Symphony 3 of Sorrowful Songs) and said "hey lover", so Sean’s fragile sensibilities had gotten the better of him and he’d released Bear, who scampered off in excitement like the absolute traitor he was, which freed up the other end of the couch. Then Harry had fucked Sean’s whole life up, by dramatically clambering over and laying down across it with his head in Sean’s lap.

"You need to mow your lawn," Harry had cheerily announced, smiling up at him. "I was too embarrassed to park on it so I stopped in Doria’s and had a cuppa and we bitched and moaned over the matter for like an hour. She’s letting me keep my car there."

Sean, who had a lot of very serious problems right now and no room to feel wronged over his elderly neighbour judging his lawn especially when she had a horrid collection of gnomes scattered across hers, could only croak out "yeah, it’s on my list" in reply.

 

It wasn’t like this kind of questionable intimacy was unusual for them. On a trip to Mudgee to play in a mini weekend tournament with Orange and Dubbo as teenagers, they’d been sharing a room with Moises and Nic when Harry had nudged him awake from a post-training nap one afternoon and had proceeded to awkwardly lay down beside him on the cheap single mattress, two bowlers who were still growing an inch a minute. He’d popped an earphone in Sean’s ear and said nothing of the fact he had a leg strung over one of Sean’s. They weren’t even good friends at that point. Sean was deep in the throes of an angsty adolescent phase at the time where comprehending the responsibilities of becoming a professional cricketer were hard work for his sixteen-year-old brain, which was also failing on every level to deal with the fact he wasn’t growing out of his crush on Moises and in fact elements of said crush were now cropping up in his feelings towards other teammates, and his classmates, and the cashier with the dimpled smile at his local Woolies check-out. Their non-Moisesness and glaring maleness combined to give Sean a reality check he could not deny or reason away, making for a surly little asshole who was not invited to many FIFA sessions on the trip. To Sean, Harry Conway was nothing but an early morning irritation who was seemingly incapable of descending the top bunk softly, and who’s wide-eyed delight at being in Mudgee as if it was some exotic destination had made him roll his own.

After that, Harry had seemingly made it his mission in life to eschew any notion of Sean’s private space existing. By the time he was twenty Sean had stopped complaining. By twenty-three he found himself initiating it.

 

"Do you want, ahh - do you want a beer?" Sean asked finally when he could no longer bear sitting there with Harry literally just staring up at him as some utterly embarrassing 2008 Miley Cyrus song came on shuffle. He lifted Harry’s head without waiting for a response and jerked out from underneath him. "I’ll get them."

"I came here to be healthy," Harry complained from the couch, voice muffled by Bear who had immediately taken Sean’s spot and so was effectively close to smothering Harry to death.

"Well you should fucking know better," Sean called out.

Harry took the can offered and smirked up at him for no good reason, in a way that made Sean feel both terrible and aroused and not being able to deal with either he fled back to the kitchen and began cutting carrots that he’d bought the day before they’d flown to the States for a salad he wasn’t really sure how to make because he lived off Pad Thai and cafe sandwiches.

"Funny you should say that," Harry said moments later, sidling into the kitchen with a shopping bag in hand. "Because Doria and I do know better." He upended the contents of the bag on the kitchen counter and handed Sean fresh carrots. "Circles. Sticks are so last season. And boil some water."

 

An hour later they’d plated some half decent chicken and veg and were back on the couch watching Cars because Harry insisted it was a classic, and Sean was feeling a lot better because he was on his fourth beer and Harry’s ankle kept rubbing against his and his left cheek was still a little flushed from where Harry had taken a good ten seconds to wipe away a wayward splash of gravy in the kitchen.

"So do you have an opinion on Tasmania," Harry had asked suddenly, voice casual.

"Cold."

"But like, the Tigers. What do you think of the team?"

"We’ll beat them. Forget last year." Sean moved his ankle a little so their legs were also touching. Harry looked at him. Sean kept his eyes on Lightning McQueen.

"Would you beat them if I was playing for them."

"Yes."

"Huh. So it’s not a good idea then?"

"What isn’t?"

"My contract is up. Adam Griffith called my agent yesterday."

Sean took a very long swig of beer at this. "Well," he said. "Right. What for?"

"Obviously it means they want to be on the right end of my future 5-fas."

A trickle of nausea was snaking its way up Sean’s throat. "And you think you’ll have those?"

"Rude."

They were silent for a moment in which Sean realised the nausea was tinged with panic. He was going to say, "look, they’re about to name Jaques as Trent’s replacement and it’s going to be better this year, you’ll see, Hadds will be involved and we’ll be better, seriously," but then Harry turned to look at him and said, "it’s not as simple as just forgetting last year, though," and Sean had snapped, "yes, it is, Harry, and if you feel the need to jump ship that easily then maybe you fucking should," and _why_ was his mouth allowed to be connected to his brain.

Harry, to his credit, did not take this as badly as he was within rights to and instead took Sean’s plate off him and dumped them both on the coffee table for Bear to lick at without admonishment because Sean had bigger issues at that moment. Then he settled back and resumed staring at Sean. "It’s not like I want to leave home," he said quietly, "or… or. But I also want to play for Australia one day and when we were away it kind of, I don’t know, hit me that I’m 25. So all my coaches are going to say, "get a few good years under your belt, Harry," and say I do, do you reckon the selectors really consider me when they realise that’s made me 28 and there’s some hotshot 22-year-old Rabada 2.0 on the scene then?"

"Then what difference does it make where you grow redundant," Sean said bitterly, the weight of realising Harry had spent America thinking about leaving crashing over him.

Harry sighed. "I’m just thinking about it, okay. Last year was shit and it wasn’t that great the year before and I just think that maybe I should weigh up what sticking around for a team rebuild means for me."

So Sean laughed, because his chest was beginning to hurt, and for all the times he’d imagined Harry rejecting him or Harry growing bored of him as reasons not to throw caution and sense to the wind and just kiss Harry - on the way to training, in the changeroom, on a cliff overlooking Yosemite Falls, in the middle of a wicket huddle - he’d never been quite so cruel to himself as to imagine Harry breaking up with him before Sean had given him a reason to that he could tell himself had all been worth it when he lay alone in the dark at night.

"Okay then. If that’s what you’ve got to do, then. You do you," he told Harry.

When Harry spoke next, he actually seemed hurt, which would have made Sean feel spitefully pleased if not for the words that came out of his mouth. "Do you not care if I go? Even now?"

"I’m," Sean said. "Excuse me. What. Do you want me to beg you don’t go?"

"I want to know if you care if I go."

"Doesn’t sound like there’s an if about it," Sean spat, standing up. He really could not be in the room with Harry anymore with its familiar domesticity and his stupid cartoon movie and the Sean of twenty minutes ago who had been entertaining thoughts of putting the disappointment of America behind him and just going for it, and _god_ he was a moron, an absolute idiot.

"Can you just. Sean, for god’s sake." Harry was looking up at him like - like he did sometimes when Sean was laughing extra loud at one of his terrible jokes or when Sean pulled back from a wicket hug and grinned at him, but there was a rawness laced in the lines of his face now. "What are we waiting for here? Because I can’t do this anymore, okay? I’m not staying here for another five years where we just dance around this. Test team or not, I don’t want to sit around just fucking hoping all the time. Sean." He stood up. "Should I go to Tasmania and you can stay and, and captain the Blues one day and get - get married or something. Or do you want me to stay."

Looking back, it was the perfect moment to say something like, "Are you coming onto me? Now, with gravy stains on your shirt? Not a month ago at the top of the Empire State Building? Not before you ruined my life just now?" And then to have been the one to pull Harry into a show stopping kiss. In reality his jaw had become somewhat unglued and his heart was lodged in his throat close to breaking and beating spastically in the great unsureness of the moment, and Harry was looking at him with his perpetually tired eyes blazing. They had stood staring at each other for an agonising stretch of time and then a panicked surge of fearlessness had bloomed in him - this was not going to be a moment lost to regret for months to come after they tried to forget it and eventually stopped speaking, because no, fuck it, he _needed_ \- and he had met Harry’s lips halfway, noses banging and a long finger slipping in his ear as Harry urgently pulled him closer by the hair.

He didn’t know how long they stood there like that, but by the time he pulled back to breathe his hands were lodged firmly under Harry’s shirt and he’d bitten a series of crenellations into his lower lip. Eyes still ablaze and cheeks flushed, Harry smirked at him, and leaned in to graze at his earlobe. "Not that I want you to think I’m easy, but can we move on?" He said. "I don’t mind that he follows me into the bathroom but I’m drawing the line at getting busy in front of your dog."

 

~

 

"So what are we doing today," Harry asked a considerable few hours later that morning, still looking half-asleep. Sean had given up on romantic notions of coaxing him out to sit on the back deck in the sun, and instead had made them a disgustingly delicious breakfast of greasy sausages he’d found frozen in the freezer that Harry had insisted on eating in bed. Slumped upright against the pillows he was now lazily trailing his fingers along Sean’s arm.

"Dunno about me but you’re going out."

Harry scrunched up his nose. "What." Sean considered vaguely that it was ten kinds of pathetic that he found even Harry’s look of confusion a turn on, but he didn’t care. He hadn’t cared when Harry had dropped a sausage on the sheets. Bear could come in and take a dump on his leg right now and Sean was almost sure he wouldn’t mind.

"You’ll have to go and see your agent," Sean said, lacing his fingers through the ones Harry was using to trace shapes over the skin of his shoulder. He pulled the hand to his lips. "I figure your palpable lust for me is a serious problem for your Tasmania plans," he smirked into Harry’s knuckles. "I don’t know how you’re supposed to leave me now. You’ll have to go and get on your knees and beg for a new contract."

"Um." Harry ran his free hand through his hair, which was not at all in a sexy state but Sean was absolutely punch drunk in love with the skyscraper in his bed and so found it at least cute and at a stretch fetching. "I see. I mean. You could always come with me to Hobart."

"No, I couldn’t."

"You could."

"I wouldn’t."

"That’s a pickle then. Also, do you know what would be great right now. A Big Mac. A double Big Mac!" Harry closed his eyes and leaned back, smiling. Sean considered leaning over and biting down on the tip of his nose, because it was as if all he was now mentally capable of was primal and carnal thoughts about Harry Conway and he really couldn’t imagine it stopping any time soon.

“Another pickle is how you’re going to explain to Doria why your car is still in her driveway,” he said instead. “And if you tell her we stayed up playing Fortnite she’s going to ask why you have a hickey from that. Several, at that.”

“I hate you,” said Harry, colour draining from his face. “That woman knows everything. Shit.”

“A human lie detector, yes,” Sean said cheerily, tugging Harry down by the front of his shirt. “Sorry.” He pressed his lips to Harry’s, soft and chaste. “You love me though.”

“Suppose I do,” Harry allowed, and pulled him in for a much deeper kiss.


End file.
